Ya need a local expert to show you where your going wrong, or to video yourself and watch videos of expert skaters to see what your doing wrong.

Stopping skills are #1 priority, always. If they are good enough, virtually no downhill obstacle is too much.

Dont roll feet side by side. Stagger them, one in front, one slightly behind. The forward foot "searches" if you will, for bad ground. If it gets hung up it gives you time to lift the rear foot and exchange it with the forward foot that gets stuck. Like catching yourself during a trip up when walking. Imagine trying to take a 30 inch step, but your foot got snagged at 25 inches out instead of the full stride, well, its similar. The ground tries to drag your foot back, and out from under you, with it forward, youll feel that resistance sooner and be able to adjust for it.

One can keep their feet pretty close together(just dont clip your own wheels), your not going to be negotiating lateral disturbaces, mainly fore/aft stability issues. So constant striding, or feet staggered with the body in the middle of them is prime.

Falling does suck. Learn to fall correctly. EVERYONE FALLS. 20 years of skating and I still fall once in a while, usually from simple things lol.

Spend time just walking around on carpet in your skates. Learn where your clearances are, and how the skates differ from barefoot or shoes. This way you get used to their proximity in various situations and stepping. This will minimize clipping them and reduce fall potential.

When standing still, ALWAYS hold 2 different angles of attack. Skates should never be parallel to each other. That is a recipe for disaster. If skates are positioned pointing at differe t anggles you will be able to hold your position or modulate it by squeezing ypur legs together, or pushing them apart.

When you execute a T stop, do it slowly. Speed will come.

There are some "prerequisites " though.
#1 balance on 1 foot.

If you can't remain stable on one foot for a few seconds, doing a T stop will be difficult.

#2 edging.
If you cant use your edges to counter the braking torque from using only 1 side of your body, youll either turn while doing it, or end up doing a spin stop.

When doing a T stop with the right foot for instance , you will slow down the right side of your body and the left side that is just coasting will still be going slightly faster. This makes you turn to the right. To stop this from happening, simply use the "outside edge" with your left foot. IE- stand on the "blade" of your left foot and lift the arch (inside edge). This will cause the quad skate to turn to the left slightly and balance out the T stop, making it more stable.

Remember, less is more. Better form first, then you can add more weight and power to that braking foot. You will also need to stiffen your abs to keep your core from twisting.

During a T stop , dont try to make a perfect T. Thats actuslly a bad thing. Its more like an L or a 70 to 85 deg angle. If the skate is perpendicular to the line of travel you could develop flat spots on your wheels. They can stop spinning if they aren't held at an angle. I usually pull my heels toward each other, not my instep/arch in behind my heel. It makes for a constricted posture and is harder to recover from.

Faster stops are spin stops, plow stops, and hockey stops.

__________________
Home rink: Roll-A-Rama in Huntington Wv.
"Focus on form and speed is a byproduct, focus on speed and falling is a byproduct." - Matguy

I love this post.
I agree with Mort.
So if you skated yesterday in January....when most of the country is below freezing including North Florida (27 degrees this morning) where are you skating?
Another tip is to try to keep your weight on your heels. That way your front wheels float over debris. Go faster when faced with a debris covered path and get low. The speed will help carry you over stuff on the ground and the low center of gravity will help you to not fall over and if you do you are closer to the ground.
Use a soft outdoor wheel (78a). This will help with the vibration issue and the rolling over acorn thing.

I skate year round in NH, USA If there's no snow during winter months, temp is relative, just keep the knees and ankles warm.
First...you need softer wheels so you roll over debris, and wrist guards till you get comfortable.
Proceed

Urethane loses a LOT of rebound as the temp drops, so sustaining speed on rough rolling surfaces at below freezing is a real challenge, not to mention the vibration increase when wheels harden up from the cold.

Been for a 2 mile skate round a racecourse (there is a service track inside of the grass horse track). No falls, managed to start to work on a T stop, drag toe stop. The trace is a bit muddy and rough so I'm not sure I'll bother going to it again.

I never skated stairs... dang gotta try that! Outdoor basketball courts or pavilions are good to skate at. Most parking lots are too rough or too much trash. There is a park in town that has 2 covered cement floors. Smooth clean and not oily like some basketball courts get.

Glad to hear you braved the elements to skate outside again. Try not to drag your toe stop behind you. It's just bad form. Toe stops are to be used for stopping going backwards.

I've skated upstairs or rather toe stop walked up stairs. I've also skated (toe-stop walked) over a cattle break.

I'm always on the look out for good outdoor skating surfaces that I won't get thrown out of for trespassing. My current challenge is finding outdoor skating areas that have lights. Got Sk8s and I live out in the country and it gets DARK out here.

So I laced up my skates and went outside.
I discovered a few things:[*]Even a very slight downhill results in an alarming turn of speed, so much so that braking is needed to avoid warp-factor speeds.

Skating is fun.

Yes, I skate very ocasionally outside and found the same. Gravity is 8.5 meters per sec squared. Your not doing the whole vector (your not going straight down, well foot2big is, but your not) but that squared part is very important.

Mortís post is most excellent. Great advice. I do have a spin on his suggestion to watch expert skaters. Years ago while watching the Olympic Games I was totally impressed by the rhythmic style and smooth form of the ice skaters, especially Apolo Ohno. On my next skate, I tried to apply this and pretended that I was ice skating instead of roller skating. I skated very slow at first, not my usual choppy burning race to full speed, but a lot more graceful and relaxed. Anyway, I liked it a lot and have stayed with it ever since. It made skating more enjoyable for me. Strangely, it is not reality, it is just an attitude toward the pavement and how you move over it. Ha!

Mort’s post is most excellent. Great advice. I do have a spin on his suggestion to watch expert skaters. Years ago while watching the Olympic Games I was totally impressed by the rhythmic style and smooth form of the ice skaters, especially Apolo Ohno. On my next skate, I tried to apply this and pretended that I was ice skating instead of roller skating. I skated very slow at first, not my usual choppy burning race to full speed, but a lot more graceful and relaxed. Anyway, I liked it a lot and have stayed with it ever since. It made skating more enjoyable for me. Strangely, it is not reality, it is just an attitude toward the pavement and how you move over it. Ha!

You countered my post with a great one yourself.

Smoothness and precision. Thats what its all about.. when I skate I pretend to be a kungfu master. Lol but seriously. How choreographed moves are in say the "IP man" movies. So smooth, and flowing. That is what one should strive for. Form and technique over power and speed. Both speed and power will come with practice.

It takes a LOT of time to develop the skillset to be able to manipulate your speed and movments on a whim in any direction.

__________________
Home rink: Roll-A-Rama in Huntington Wv.
"Focus on form and speed is a byproduct, focus on speed and falling is a byproduct." - Matguy

Outdoor wheels. I love skating outdoors, and have a set of Atom Pulses that I currently use. (going to get some of those bigger orange wheels, when I remember what they are!) Anyway, they have recently re-asphlated our neighborhood streets and it is a nice surface. Only slightly rougher than the river path I use at times. Great to be able to go right out the door on skates. I am still working on the stopping part when on a downhill. Fortunately my street is not very busy, and I usually zig-zag pretty hard until I get close to the bottom and can feel safe going around the corner!
Yes, falling hurts. More as you get older. Been skating almost 50 years now and it hurts a little more than it used to. I do wear all the gear, including a bum saver when I skate outside. Been warm here in OKC, so an evening or two I attack the street with one or two of my kids.

__________________
Paul
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Success is failure upon failure with great enthusiasm. Theodore Roosevelt

Mortís post is most excellent. Great advice. I do have a spin on his suggestion to watch expert skaters. Years ago while watching the Olympic Games I was totally impressed by the rhythmic style and smooth form of the ice skaters, especially Apolo Ohno. On my next skate, I tried to apply this and pretended that I was ice skating instead of roller skating. I skated very slow at first, not my usual choppy burning race to full speed, but a lot more graceful and relaxed. Anyway, I liked it a lot and have stayed with it ever since. It made skating more enjoyable for me. Strangely, it is not reality, it is just an attitude toward the pavement and how you move over it. Ha!

Dont roll feet side by side. Stagger them, one in front, one slightly behind.

Mort is right; this is THE basic technique for skating outdoors. Even the basic position distributes your weight so you don't hit obstacles all at once, and as Mort says, once you get more accustomed to it, you'll also be able to shift your weight in all sorts of ways to avoid ever more stumbles.

Quote:

My tip to myself would be "Wear wristguards".

Ouch! Wrists can definitely take a pounding, whether you fall forward or backward (and unlike indoors, there's less slide to absorb the forces). I hope your wrist gets better soon!

I wear wrist and knee guards and a helmet outdoors; I am in the same situation as you injury-wise with my left knee, in that it has had bursitis now for nearly two years (injury May 2014, I didn't really follow up medically, second injury June 2015 and bursitis confirmed with x-ray six weeks post-injury) and I am not sure if it will ever recover fully. Both times skating without knee guard, both times hitting a rock while gliding on one foot, first time outdoors and second time indoors. And I am sure I would have hurt my wrists without the wrist guards; my old guards when I got rid of them were a sight to behold, the plastic was almost worn through with scratches. I am even considering longboard slide gloves for some skating routes to avoid the lacerations/asphalt burn to my hands AROUND the guards. I also feel that the sliding action would help to disperse some of the momentum from a fall when skating fast, however I'm also worried it might compromise the natural ability to use your hands to protect your head/jaw if you are really in danger of falling "flat on your face". (Jaw fractures are also nasty beasts...)

Helmet is simply because, while I feel they're less common in skating than knee/wrist injuries, head injuries are nasty to behold and to experience. Ice skating since age 14 and then roller the last few years, I have seen this happen (and heard it - skull on ice or concrete, not a nice sound) and also known people who have been through them due to other causes. Just upgraded to the Nutcase bike/skate helmet because their 64cm size is the only one that actually properly fits my ginormous cranium.

I hope your wrist gets better! Let us know if you get back to outdoor skating or have any more questions!

This tip on rolling outdoors with staggered feet needs a little clarification.

First of all, when you are really SKATING outdoors and sustaining a decent speed - i.e. propelling yourself forward with push strokes - you will only have ONE skate down on the rolling surface at a time as you alternate legs with each push stroke.

You lose speed outdoors so much faster than indoors, so you really need to keep pumping your strokes to hold speed, and there is often not all that that much time spend coasting, at least not where I skate.

When you are COASTING outdoors, usually on down grades, you will typically have two skates down and rolling. In this scenario, the staggered foot placement stance, will certainly have you better prepared for handling anything that the rolling surface might send at you.

Now when you are skating & pushing strokes, with only one foot down at a time, and you notice some irregularities with the rolling surface up ahead that could cause problems for you, that is when you may find it useful to drop the up skate into the staggered position and briefly coast with less weight on the forward skate, until the rough surface issue gets behind you.

Well, the question is asked by a beginner, I'd bet money that 90% of all outdoor roller skating isn't racing in a "drone like" manner going nowhere, but is in fact people just tooling along dancing, so with that in mind, never put both feet together below yourself, it's to easy to touch wheels or rollover some impediment or another, only one out of eight wheels locked up will put you to ground, if you insist on skating on just one skate at a time, keep your eyes on the road ahead, go around or over debris, it's simple, don't fall.
Wrist guards work, knee pads are useful if you fall to your knees a lot, and only fools fall to their knees a lot, clean the bearing frequently, the outdoors is dusty and oily and wet.
Practice flipping around backwards and applying the toe stops, instant stop.
Hydrate

First of all, when you are really SKATING outdoors and sustaining a decent speed - i.e. propelling yourself forward with push strokes - you will only have ONE skate down on the rolling surface at a time as you alternate legs with each push stroke.

This is definitely the case; for some reason I find that I don't fall if I am either skating in the staggered stance or skating (stroking) continuously, but putting your feet together will cause a fall. I think it is because once you have the staggered stance down for coasting, if your skating foot hits something, your non-skating foot will instinctively come down into a good place to avoid hitting whatever it is/was. Or something. I don't really know why, just that hitting some kind of object perpendicular to your direction of travel, with both feet down at once, causes falls. Also, the times I do fall are often when I have been unnaturally slowed due to something (narrow path, people around, standing around on skates talking on the phone, stopping for cars, going up steep hill), thus I agree strongly with your suggestion about trying to maintain a flow of skating as much as possible.

In the case of both of the above-mentioned knee injuries, I was skating on one foot for the purpose of something other than stroking (the first time was while following a line on the ground with one foot, very little speed so I fell straight down, the second after doing a "bunny hop" type jump during art skating).

Quote:

Wrist guards work, knee pads are useful if you fall to your knees a lot, and only fools fall to their knees a lot, clean the bearing frequently, the outdoors is dusty and oily and wet.

I don't fall to my knees a lot by any measure; I don't fall a lot even skating outdoors and when I do, 80% of the time it is backwards even if caused by tripping on something in front of me... the problem is it has only taken two unprotected knee falls to cause what may be irreversible damage to my left knee, which is why I now wear kneepads even though I don't fall to my knees often. The issue for me has been sudden, severe injuries, rather than accumulated damage from multiple falls.